Office 2007 for the application developer

Images

2007-12-31T12:59:00.000-08:00

You can read the complete post with images at http://www.chrisgreaves.com/office2007developer/.

Trial version is available

2007-01-23T02:40:00.000-08:00

You can read about it here.

Normal.Dot Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible.

2006-10-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

(sigh!) Office 2007 is gone. Details are scanty, but they are here: http://microsoftoffice2007.blogspot.com/2006/10/gone-forever.html

BeTTR Compatibility

2006-09-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

I have installed the Beta Two Technical Refresh, and this morning fired up my contacts database in Access2007.

I am suddenly confronted with problems.

In fairness I must confess that my Access VBA skills are not as good as yours.

There may well be serious deficiencies in my code that have escaped notice until now, but today I am receiving warnings that were not in effect yesterday. The difference is that today I am running not the Beta2, but the patched version - BTTR.

For over a year (Access 2000 and on) I have used a routine that updates various date fields when I post a follow-up date into the future. The background receives a colour showing whether the date is in the future or the past.

Today Access 2007 tells me that it can't find the field, but clearly the View Immediate tells me that it can find the field.

The problem possibly lies in the "#Name?" value that has crept in there. Perhaps earlier versions of Access didn't mind that value, or perhaps earlier versions didn't produce that value. Please see "my Access VBA skills" above.

In desperation, I resort to On Error Resume Next.

Desperation because I'm scheduled to make telephone calls right now, not learn VBA programming (see? I'm no different from you; I have a job to do).

I hate On Error with a passion. To me it indicates one of three things:

Lack of professionalism in the programmer (that is my case here; I'm not yet prepared to work out why I'm getting a "Name?" value).

Lack of planning in the programmer (that is my case here; I had not planned for an event such as faulty input data, or whatever it is that triggers this data).

Poor design in the product. I know that a good workman never blames his tools, but VBA provides no intrinsic function for testing a file's existence, or whether a project is password-protected, so we all resort to the trick of trying to do something and returning a trapped error if it fails.

Then it crops up again.

This time on a null field.

I'll swear I had no problem with this yesterday.

I could be wrong.

You knew this was going to happen.

On Error resume Next and a cheap'n'nasty Word macro, and we are back in business.

Baling Twine. We need more baling twine.

Version Compatibility

2006-09-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

I have been engaged in a mild debate over at Woody's Lounge regarding the various versions of Word. My incoming task was to obtain the most recently used file list for each and every version of Word from Office 2007 through Office 2007.

MRUse in its initial incarnation made use of the application object, its Recent Files list. That approach does not work when several versions of the application exist.

Dim xlApp As Excel.Application
Set xlApp = CreateObject("Excel.Application") ' gets me 9.0, but I want all!
Dim lng As Long
For lng = 1 To xlApp.RecentFiles.Count
Dim strFullName As String
strFullName = xlApp.RecentFiles(lng).Path

The code snippet above will always grab Excel 9.0's recent files if Excel 9.0 was the latest version (of 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0 and 12.0) to be loaded and used.

I need dive into the registry now, and that is what I do.

Dim lng As Long
For lng = lngLow To lngHigh
Dim strValue As String
strValue = strWeTrim(QueryValue(HKEY_CURRENT_USER, _
strKey, strValuePrefix & Trim(Str(lng))))

The debate does not quite rage, but if it did, it would rage over the issue of whether or not one can successfully run four versions of Office under a single operating system (Windows XP) on a single partition single-boot system.

Yes you can! I am doing just that.

I have a 2GB RAM 100GB drive laptop with Windows XP professional, and licensed copies of Office 97, Office 2000, Office 2003 and Office 2007 beta, installed in that sequence.

I can load a copy of each version of Word and thus have four versions of Word running on the machine.

Each version of Word uses the same default file locations for documents, Startup folder and so on, so each version of word exhibits and permits use of the applications (Under, Trail, Indxr and so on) that I have developed in Word VBA for end-users of Word.

The only annoyances I have spotted so far are:

From time to time Office 2000 or Office 2003 whips out its flashlight and looks for something. I think it thinks it is "repairing" the registry because a different version of Office has just "repaired" it back to its own devices.

From time to time my Toolbars Best Fit macro doesn't. I will look into this. I suspect it will be found as a programming error on my part.

Apart from that, I can't see any major conflict that faces me, as a developer of VBA applications in multiple versions of Office.

Could Not Open Macro Storage

2006-08-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

Our friends are still here - the Macro Storage Twins.

I crafted a neat Word2000 VBA macro yesterday, saved it in a document. This morning I executed the document into Word2007 beta, finally found the macro (in another blog), and ran it.

The macro updates Access fields, and before too long I ran into the "invalid use of Null" liability clause. My fault. Should have seen it coming. Choose Debug; may as well fix it now.

Ta Da! They're baaaaack!

I still can't get out of this apparent loop. I say apparent because it is not apparent to me that it ends. With twenty of forty modules in various projects sitting around, I may be getting the pop up from each failed attempt to open a module.

I don't have time for that. Task manager and beta-be-gone! I'm using the time I saved to write this blog. Sniff.

More and more I feel that Office 12 is just Office 2003 is just Office 2003 is just Office 2002 is just Office 2000 is just Office 97, but now we have a ribbon.

I feel like tying a yellow ribbon around Microsoft's neck sometimes .. (Just Kidding!)

Asking for a default ribbon.

2006-08-28T03:30:00.000-07:00

A post of interest to developers can be found at my "other" Office 2007 blog here: http://microsoftoffice2007.blogspot.com/

With an image of my screen here: http://www.chrisgreaves.com/Office2007User/MondayAugust282006.html

The Server Threw An Exception - I Threw A Fit!

2006-08-22T17:26:00.000-07:00

I have a Word application called Proje(ct). It serves me well by indenting, listing, sorting, harvesting VBA code in Word, Excel and PowerPoint projects. It works well, although I say so myself.

I am especially in need of it after a long session of cut-and-paste, to re-indent my source code so that it appears correctly nested.

To my horror this morning I received a run-time error:

A search of Woody's Lounge brought no hits. A search of Google Groups fared little better.

Thrown back on my own resources I tracked the problem down to my running Proje under Word 2000, as I am wont to do, but the application having mysteriously latched on to a version '12' of the Excel library, that is, instead of this:

I saw this:

I'm not surprised that Word2000 objects to an attempt to discuss affairs with Office 12, but I'm puzzled as to how Microsoft managed to slip inside my locked template, modify it, and save it!

No News Is Good News

2006-08-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling guilty about the lack of posts. Let me explain.

I am using all four versions of Office97, Office2000, Office2003 and Office 2007.

All four versions point to the same startup folder “C:\Greaves\Startup\WORD”, wherein are found 15 application templates (14 of them mine!) and a utility library (UW.DOT).

With the exception of my Toolbars macros (BestFitToolbars, Lock/Unlock Toolbars) every macro that I use in every one of those 15 applications is working fine.

That’s about 660 macros. Of course, I’m not running each macro every day, but I have 660+ macros available to me whenever I load Word. Then I have the other applications that I add-in for one-off jobs.

Some of my code is seven years old.

There’s even a trace of WordBasic. In there!

It is working.

I have not yet essayed into the XML-like stuff that we VBAers are dreading.

However, if you are a developer with a large investment in VBA, rest easy. My experience shows that our legacy code works just fine, and the urgent Office12 project which will land on your desk tomorrow can be developed quickly in VBA without a long learning curve into XML.

That’s good news!

Normal.dot Vs. Normal.dotM

2006-07-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

I am not sure what is going on, and must investigate further.

I have useful macros in my Word97/2000/2003 Normal.dot. I have labeled it so because no matter which version I load, the Normal.dot runs just fine.

Word2007 loads a Normal.dotM which is, of course, a different file from my Normal.dot.

When I load Word2000 I am using my Normal.dot.

When I load Word2007 I am using my Normal.dotM.

The batch file for Word97/2000/2003 refreshes Normal.dot by copying it from a secure location (another anti-virus bulwark):

copy c:\SAFE\Normal080.DOT "c:\Templates\Normal.DOT"
call "C:\Program Files\Office2000\Office\winword.EXE"

A natural consequence of this is that no matter how much I modify Normal.dot, no matter I save the changes, they disappear on the next load. (Actually the batch file archives them, but that doesn’t affect the story).

The startup sequence in Normal.dot includes checking the Auto recovery data (Tools, Options, Save, “Save auto recover”) and modifying a toolbar button. The toolbar button shows an orange lozenge if Auto recover is set zero, otherwise shows a “1”. “5” or “10”, and clicking the button cycles me through “0”, “1”, “5” or “10” minutes respectively.

Further, if the value of “Save auto recover” is non-zero, the startup sequence alerts me with a message box.

This has been working for me for several years; I generally don’t trust Auto recover, and turn it on only when I am doing lengthy text entry.

Word2007, of course, doesn’t see my C:\Greaves\Admin\Templates\Normal.Dot, or at least, chooses not to, so in general I don’t see my lozenge available.

Whereas loading Word2000 shows the lozenge in residence:

Clicking the lozenge twice cycles me from zero through 1 to 5 minutes:

If I cycle through, the toolbar button image is changed, and so I am prompted to save Normal.dot:

And if I re-load Word2000 Normal.dot inspects the Save Auto recover value and re-fabricates the toolbar button (remember I always start with a fresh copy of Normal.dot) and issues an alert – in this case for 1 minute:

Here is the oddity: When I load Word2007, and hook in Normal.dot as an addin, Word2007 reports the save interval to be 10 minutes:

As well, the toolbar icon shows 10 minutes as the button caption – consistent with my message box, but inconsistent with what I know to be there!

(later)
?application.Options.SaveInterval

is the key to the problem.

I believe that Word saves the value of SaveInterval in the registry, under the infamous “Data” branch. That being so, each of my 4 versions of Word (97, 2000, 2003 and 2007) ought to exhibit different save values.

I put this to the test by setting SaveInterval to be 0, 1, 5 and 10 respectively in the four versions , and sure enough, checking the Auto recovery data (Tools, Options, Save, “Save auto recover”) in each version shows that it is so preserved.

My Normal Startup is working correctly.

If I want to set the SaveInterval in one version and have it carried over to the next version, I must perform some skullduggery with the registry from within my VBA code. And for this issue I would rather not do that here and now!

Setting Up

2006-07-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

(You can read this post with images at http://www.chrisgreaves.com/Office2007developer/)

The first VBA macro I tried to run in Word2007 was my “Best Fit Toolbars By Name”. It crashed, probably because we don’t have command bars any more, we have ribbons.

So tonight I began peeking under the hood.

First step is to make use of Word2007’s interface to get to VBA; I can re-tool it as my own later.

It is once more into the Pearl, Word Options, Personalize and Show Developer Tab.

With that in place I record, run and review the typical “Hello World” macro.

Apart from that, everything else seems to be in place.

Extra Purpose

2006-07-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

You are probably aware that I have a parallel commentary based on my experiences as a end-user (Please see “Office 2007 for the end-user”). This blog goes beyond my use of Office 2007 as a desktop tool and extends into my special field of Rapid Application Development.

Rapid Application Development means here that I can build a complete and functional application with a user interface in anything from an hour to three days.
I make extensive use of libraries of code and Powerful Engines to achieve my goals.
In the period 1997 to 2006 I made use of Word’s VBA language to drive 95% of the developed applications, including document processors, spreadsheet and presentation manipulators, and specialized tasks such as cleaning up Notes History data in Act6! Contact management databases.

With 2007 I’ll continue to press for Rapid Application Development, but I’ll be seeing it through new eyes.

I expect I will migrate my existing libraries as quickly as possible so that I can focus on new applications in Office 2007 without having to rebuild each utility procedure from scratch.

This is the approach I adopted when migrating from Word’s WordBasic to Word97.

2006-07-08T05:08:00.000-07:00

This blog documents my day-by-day experiences as an application developer using the available Office2007 version.
You can contact me by telephone or email via http://www.chrisgreaves.com/contact.htm